Mostly Macros™ From Spiders to Electronics and physics I started this site to show the world my passion for photography/science despite having serious life challenges. It is my hope to teach as well as to inspire others with life challenges to achieve goals.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

An Indonesian Ladybug.Believe it or not, this is where I am staying. On the beach where my mom lives in Guam.

The best thing about Guam in my opinion! THE GIRLS! Lots of them. With a big camera on the beach you get noticed and they often will pose for me:-)

My next stop, the rice paddies outside of UBUD Bali, island. I have nearly 50GB of pictures which I will slowly put into my website. My new camera creates very large files that take a long time to process.

Butterflies and insects of all kinds were in Bali. Huge beetles, and stuff I have wanted to photograph for years. I first went to Bali when I was 12, back then I could only had an old Polaroid. Finally I've been able to realize my dream of shooting some of the incredible species down there. I could spend years.

The Dragon flies and Damsel flies (as seen here) are not very afraid of people over there. In Bali Most of the people are Hindu. Respect for nature is taken to an extreme in many incredible ways.

A Hindu offering for the spirits overlooking a rice field.

The schoolkids all got together for my camera on a walk just a block from my hotel. I was glad to see that extreme poverty was not a problem and there was no hint of any anti-American sentiment. I was not afraid of traveling to Bali.

Houses and water towers, rice and other fields of crops surround the city of UBUD.

HARD TO CATCH, a Tokay Gecko. They are very fast and very large. It is nearly impossible to catch them. I was very lucky to outsmart and catch the Gecko that gave it the name. When I released this one, it quickly made the characteristic sound. Gecko....geckoock..gech..ch. as if tobrag about getting away from me. Sometimes they sound different, I'm sorry I don't know how to put the sound they make on my website.

This HUGE toad lives outside my mom's condo where I'm currently staying. I nicknamed him"Jabba the hut" for obvious reasons.

And these pictures are worth there weight in gold. A golden silk spider. This is probably the 2nd largest orb-web building spider in the world. Nearly the size of an outstretched my hand, this huge spider is harmless and can be seen all over Bali. The females are literally a dozen times larger then the males, which don't even look like the same species. This is a huge female nearing her time to lay eggs.

I have many views and high-res closeups from all sides. These large spiders are very slow moving and docile. I will do a more complete report with tons of pictures on this species later on. I made considerable efforts at capturing this incredible and massive spider photographically.

Monkeys are common in this area of Bali and Indonesia in general.

There were dozens of species of damsel and dragonflies. I found this one very unique.

A sunset in Guam. Made chrome by a sensor adjustment to my camera.

These are a few highlights from my trip. I am currently on the island of Guam. This has been the most incredible trip I have been on since I was a little kid. Finally having the gear to capture it like this realized a childhood dream. These are not the "best shots", those may not be shot yet or have yet to be processed. My Cannon shoots very large files so it takes a considerable amount of time process them in Photoshop.

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The first digital prints I made

THE STORY- I could not afford frames! So for my first digital prints at home, I used thrift store frames. I took all the above pictures in frames with only compact digital cameras. I modified them for macro shots with re-cycled optics. Most of these were taken with the Kodak DX-7630, Konica Minolta Z10. and sometimes a Canon A520. ALL these cameras for some reason they are stuck stopped at F8 and lower only. I do not know why even many of the most expensive compact cameras are limited to F8. It is still possible to get great shots with them. For some shots I added a plastic "aperture plug" what I came up with to make my own higher aperture setting by fitting it inside a tube before after the first lenses to increase depth of field. F8 usually actually did the job well enough back then. Now I often shoot up at F22-36+ with more and more pro-gear and digital and sometimes film SLRs but sometimes a small camera can be a good idea to keep in mind.

FULL MOON

Canon EOS 400D 70-300mm F3.5

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